Harris Jayaraj

Harris Jayaraj (born 8 January 1975) is an Indian film composer. He has written scores and soundtracks for Tamil, Telugu and Hindi films.
 
Early life
 
Harris Jayaraj hails from a pious Christian Nadar family from Tirunelveli and was born and brought up in Chennai. Harris studied at Krishnaswamy Matric School, K. K. Nagar. His father, S. M. Jayakumar, was a noted film guitarist and an assistant to Malayalam music director Shyam and later became a noted musician and film composer. At age six, Harris began his formal training in carnatic music. His father wanted him to become a guitarist and made him learn classical guitar. Harris scored the highest mark in Asia on his 4th grade exam of Trinity College of Music, London.
He started his music career as a guitarist in 1987 at age twelve. After befitting as a guitar player, he started playing keyboard and developed interest over synthesizers. He then started programming with his Roland MC-500 and went on to work as a programmer under more than twenty five music directors in Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, Bengali and Oriya, working in more than 600 projects till the year 2000. He worked under noted composers including Raj-Koti, A. R. Rahman, Mani Sharma, Karthik Raja, Vidyasagar. While working as an additional programmer under Rahman, he composed music for various television commercials including a Coca-Cola commercial featuring actor Vijay. In his early years, he admired music composers M. S. Viswanathan, percussionist Aruljothi Balagopal, A. R. Rahman and Hans Zimmer.
 
Film scoring
 
Harris ventured into film scoring with Gautham Menon's Minnale. The album was well received, particularly the song "Vaseegara" was exceptionally popular. He received the Filmfare Award for Best Music Director – Tamil for his work in Minnale, breaking the 9 years continuous record of A. R. Rahman. The following soundtrack albums 12B and Majunu met with high acclaim and praise. His Minnale score was later used in the Hindi version, titled Rehnaa Hai Terre Dil Mein also directed by Gautham Menon. He then worked in Lesa Lesa directed by Priyadarshan. The title track was the first song in India to be released as a single prior to the album release. Harris made his debut in Tollywood with Vasu. He received the Filmfare Award for Best Music Director – Tamil, Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Music Director and ITFA Best Music Director Award for Kaakha Kaakha, starring Suriya and Jyothika. This film directed by Gautham Menon was a high commercial success and the songs met with critical acclaim. In its Telugu remake Gharshana two new songs apart from the Tamil version were added to suit the taste of Telugu audience. The song "Uyirin Uyire" reused as Cheliya Cheliya in Telugu and Khwabon Khwabon in Hindi is considered as one of Harris' most successful songs. Harris had eventually emerged as a music director of reckoning in Tamil cinema.
Harris worked on Ullam Ketkumae with director Jeeva again after 12B. The music was appreciated for its "excellency and synergy with the atmosphere in and out of the movie". Director S. Shankar, noted leading director of Tamil cinema, paired up with Harris in his magnum opus Anniyan. It was the first time Shankar did not team up with A. R. Rahman and the album turned out as a grand success. Shankar confessed that working with Harris was a great experience. The soundtrack album received several awards including Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Music Director and Filmfare Award for Best Music Director – Tamil. The next film he scored was Ghajini directed by A. R. Murugadoss, for which he received Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Music Director. A critics noted that the album had "scintillating, party-hopping numbers", which resulted in a huge commercial success in audio sales; the track "Sutum Vizhi" crossed 2 crore downloads and turned out to be phenomenally successful. Harris worked next on the Gautham Menon's crime thriller Vettaiyadu Villaiyadu starring Kamal Haasan. Bbehindwoods wrote that he had "crafted a necessary classiness" into the film. Gautham revealed that he used to share the entire script with Harris. The "Manjal Veyil" song does not feature the traditional pallavi-charanam format. Harris once again ventured into Tollywood with a successful album Sainikudu. The music album of the film was released simultaneously in 10 chosen venues from five different countries.
Gautham Menon who considers the music and background score of Harris as a major asset of his films, once again teamed up with Harris on a romantic-thriller Pachaikili Muthucharam. A reviewer wrote that the songs were "melancholic, lilting, mysterious, and alternatively catchy once gain resulting in an as usual, great Gautham-Harris combination". Jeeva and Harris continued their partnership in Unnale Unnale. Indiaglitz wrote: "The music album oozing with energy all through proved to be a cut above the rest". With Munna Harris provided the song Manasa which also fetched a Filmfare Best Singer Female award to Sadhana Sargam. With the following album Bheema, Harris continued his mettle with all the six songs. The track Siru Parvaiyalae used Pashto words in interludes. The album was praised for "bringing up visual recapitulation from audio". Harris used a live orchestra of 84 members for the action cop film Sathyam.